The hour-long LP often plays out like an experimental 80s fever dream, but it’s still anchored by The Weeknd’s broody sonic DNA.

Across Suddenly, Snaith surrenders to the current. If you do, too, you’ll find a rich and rewarding listening experience.

Boucher's production prowess, beautifully complex and ambitious songwriting, is self-evident on Miss Anthropocene.

Have We Met is another new departure, yet it still has that familiar strange storytelling swagger that’s at the heart of Destroyer.

If Cry Cry Cry had the feel of a band shaking off the cobwebs and getting used to each other’s company once again, Thin Mind leaves no doubt about Wolf Parade’s continued vitality. You instantly feel that renewed vigour in the storming first seconds of the opening Under Glass.

Andy Shauf’s new songs are fictional but feel oh so real, especially if you live in Toronto and even more especially if you live in Parkdale and frequent Skyline, the diner where most of the Toronto-based musician’s new album takes place. ... There are new melodic and rhythmic risks taken.

Lyrically, Styles is at his best when he’s biting. 0000... He’s not exactly mining unexplored territory. But, he’s an Internet Boyfriend – and Internet Boyfriends are non-threatening. As he inches closer towards the adult pop contemporary charts, Styles is thankfully owning his one-fifth of the One Direction power-pop legacy.

Cohen’s voice is at the centre of all the songs – present and passionate, the unmistakable deep rasp even better matching his searching weariness the older he got. And it’s all here, that never-duplicated mix of sex and death, the sacred and the profane.

Jesus Is King provides an undeniably moving and distinct new chapter in the book of Kanye. Whether you choose to skip it or place it high on your mantel, its cultural significance is only bound to grow.

Her sad-girl persona, thrust upon her unwittingly by music media, transforms into its most dramatic form. It’s a brazen sadness echoed through crashing symbols and spacious synths. The songs are devastating, but also nourishing: it’s a whole new version of Olsen.

Recorded in her cabin in the woods of New Hampshire, the album has a strong connection to nature and draws on themes of survival, healing and spirituality. ... Not all tracks sound like club hits, however. Deep Connections has a soft, ethereal quality created by synthy arpeggios and My Body Is Powerful samples soothing nature sounds – birdcall and distant howls – over a pentatonic scale.

It’s more polished than most S-K albums, but it’s still a flurry of frenetic chords, caustic drum beats and yelps and hisses from Carrie Brownstein and Tucker. Clark gave The Center Won’t Hold a very modern filter and sheen, but Sleater-Kinney still set the tone.

Piano, reverb and guitar fuzz make it Del Rey’s dreamiest and most cohesive album since 2015’s Honeymoon and her most rock-inspired since 2014’s Ultraviolence. The National Anthem singer adds new shade to her ongoing California period, re-evaluating the narrative of life in the United States that she’s built her brand on.

Beyond the amber waves of grain, Purple Mountains offer fans a feast of food for thought.

The album evokes images of oceans, lakes and rivers in not only the album art, song titles and lyrics, but also in the overall atmosphere. Songs fluctuate like water, varying from tumultuous and joyous to still and tranquil. They flow with ease.

It’s rock ’n’ roll for 2019, though the band calls it simply pub rock. Either way, it’ll get a mosh going.

Musically, it's considerably less abstract than his last solo album, 2014's Tomorrow's Modern Boxes. Like the other albums under his name (including last year's Suspiria soundtrack and his pseudo-solo side project Atoms for Peace) it's more electronic than rock, but there's a warmth to it you wouldn't expect.

An all-you-can-eat steak buffet for listeners. ... The musical arrangements are even sparser than Callahan’s last studio album, 2013’s Dream River, yet his foghorn voice remains intimately pushed to the forefront of the mix.

Like fine wine, Bill Hader or Gillian Anderson, Greys are only getting better with age.

Their lush and vivid sounds feel like a reaction to change--and the self-reckoning required to move forward.

Full of 80s college rock and 90s indie rock feel-goodness, the band’s debut album Football Money will no doubt fool throwback slackers into adopting this band as their own.

In a tight but varied 39 minutes, Tyler is exploring the sonic terrain in Flower Boy with a narrative concept that, like a non-relationship, feels endless and all-encompassing, then hard not to put on repeat.

The wild, bludgeoning crest of the album’s centre gives way to the soft, yellowing bruises of its final third, revealing that the band can be just as disarmingly potent and complex even while exhibiting the utmost restraint.

Improvised music already lends itself to the unpredictable qualities of the elements, but Tagaq and company also find their strength in building patterns. ... Her vocal performance on the record is inspired. It arrives like a violent current that you have no choice but to lose yourself in.

Pierce has called Brutalism his most honest work yet, but personal detail aside, it’s an incisive album about the prevailing mood of the moment: anxiety. The lyrics might be grim, but the music encourages us to stick it out.

Titanic Rising is a leap forward for the self-described “nostalgic futurist,” yet Mering’s core musical gifts remain intact. Her voice holds you like a steady flashlight beam in a meadow fog.

Her evocations to dance, be present and claim space are the most potent and political moments.

The album can’t help but feel like an appetizer. So, yes, it is too short, but that’s the point. We can be hungry for more, yet still satisfied here. That this is Vol. 1 means there will be a Vol. 2.